Second Hand Malocchio
by Legare Virtuoso
Summary: In which the authoress dies and the universe has a giant laugh at their expense by reincarnating them in their favorite fandom. Or, how a self-insert becomes an original character in fourteen years... give or take a few months. T for occasional language and mild violence.


**A/N**: I do not own anything recognizable in this work. Frequent quotes by Niccolo Machiavelli are used, as well as characters and concepts from Katekyo Hitman Reborn. I have no idea why I'm doing this, but I'll try and keep this decently scheduled. Reviews and favorites feed the needy authoress!

* * *

Most people find that Monday is the worst day of the week for them. I think I can safely say that Tuesday will forever remain as my personal day of great failure, with a track record long enough to make my insides cry. Which they will be doing after this particular Tuesday to Trump All Tuesdays, but that's missing the point. Usually Tuesdays weren't cosmic level awful, merely something I had learned to grin and bear over the course of the many years I had lived on Planet Earth. This particular Tuesday beat out my top three least favorites (being dumped by the love of my life, followed by my dog being hit by a car after running away, and rounded out nicely by the time I lodged a rock in my leg trying to mow the lawn) in a landslide victory for the ages.

This particular Tuesday is the day I died.

I know, not generally what one suspects from a day as monotonously terrible as Tuesdays are want to be. But in terms of sheer dignity removing ways to die, this one took the proverbial cake. The actual dying part was awful, the kind of pain you don't describe to other people if you want them to still like you. And because the pain was so bad I can't bother to think straight. So bad that the only thing I wanted to do was drag myself out of this horrible place, but all I could manage was to scream until my lungs gave out. Burning to death is not something to be contemplated by the weak stomached, not when you consider the part where you're essentially being cooked to death in your own blood and fat. At least I didn't have to worry about not being able to see anything. No. That would have been a kindness from the cosmic forces that power our humble little existences. Instead I could hear the crackle of flames and the high pitched sounds of my voice giving out, the smell of burning hair and cheap steak filling my nose. I felt my throat crack from the smoke and vibrating of my vocal chords, the screaming that faltered like a coffee machine sputtering out its last dregs. The fire was so bright and warm, and I felt my breath hitch from pain and the screaming… and then nothing really mattered after that.

Smoking can and will kill you kiddies, don't do it.

My name is Lena. My star sign is Taurus, I am five feet and a couple of inches, have distressingly curly brown hair and boring brown eyes. I lived an average life doing average things, and rather went out of my way to avoid being spectacular. I died the Tuesday after my twenty-third birthday. Before I died I had been on the way to the store to get more kibbles for my adorable pound mutt. At two in the morning, I hadn't expected anyone to even be on the roads, let alone sideswipe my beat-up car into a building. I most definitely had not been expecting to drop my lit cigarette in my lap, for the door to fail at opening and the seat itself to go up like a Christmas tree with bad wiring. At twenty-three I did not expect to burn myself alive in a car. Honestly, I had expected to die as one of those wonderfully crazy grandmothers who sat in rocking chairs and told all the little grandchildren about the worst things their parents had done with a twinkle of madness in my cataract laden eyes. But no. Instead I died of a car accident and a poorly time nicotine fix at the wonderful age of twenty-three.

That really should bother me more than it does.

I mean… I just died. Literally. Just. Died. I can still remember the way it felt when- doesn't matter. I am dead. Deader than zombies after a double-tap. I. Am. Dead.

But I'm not dead.

I can touch my fingertips to my thumb. I can breathe. I'm sitting down on something oddly comfortable, like one of those suede armchairs people can randomly be eaten by. I have rational thought. So that means I'm not dead. Cogito, ergo sum.

But I just died.

I very distinctly remember dying. It's not something you tend to forget less than half an hour after it happens.

I just died, and now I'm sitting in a plush armchair. Red suede, very pleasant to recline in. In my right hand I held a white porcelain teacup and saucer, and I lifted it to my face to take a curious sniff. Rooibos with a touch of clover honey and milk. It smells like my favorite blend, and not something that had anything remotely to do with the extreme pain I had just gone through. I'm dead, and now I'm sitting at a tea party. At least I think it's a tea party, what with the cup of tea and really nice chair and all. Screw this. I already died. What's the worst that could happen?

I drank the tea.

Pinky up, because screw all of this. Creepy shadows danced along on the white tablecloth, the place was freakishly lit so only my end of the long table was lit up, all in a place where you can't see the floor for trying. Every witch, stitch and female dog in this place can find the whitest part of my recently self-immolated behind and kiss it. I'm dead.

If I stop reminding myself I might start believing it was a dream.

I am dead.

This should bother me.

It doesn't.

What really bothers me is the fact that it _doesn't_ bother me. Weren't there supposed to be four stages to this? A process where at some point I was going to throw this nice teacup across… wherever this was. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then finally acceptance. That was how it was supposed to go. The fact that I am dead, or have at least had a remarkably realistic nightmare in which I did in fact light myself on fire with a cigarette, should really bother me. I should have some sort of emotional breakdown, not sip tea and kick my heels at a table in the spooky creepy darkness. But I didn't. Honestly, I can't even bring myself to be curious about the fact that I'm just not concerned about the part of my day where I _lit myself on fire_. Have I gone crazy? No. Dead people can't be crazy. It doesn't work like that.

I should be hovering over my dead body or something. Wailing at my dog and telling him to pee all over the neighbor's rosebushes because it would be funny. Begging my mother and father to forgive me for not being a good daughter after everything they had done for me. At the very least there was supposed to be a bright light at the end of a tunnel I could go towards. Not a tea party with no one. At this point I would be perfectly willing to accept a train station metaphor for death. A library full of books of my memories and others. A line of people in front of the pearly gates. Maybe a big hole in the ground I was about to be punted into. Even a creepily silent waiting room of bureaucracy and stagnation would have been acceptable. But a tea party?

Do I look like Alice? Am I going to need to worry about the existence of a creepy cat with no understanding of personal boundaries or physics? How about a deranged woman who was going to want my head delivered to her on a literal silver platter? Was this tea even real? Am I really dead? These are really not the kinds of things I was expecting my afterlife to be filled with. Hollywood had lied to me over the course of my life, and I couldn't even summon up the urge to be mad about it. Instead I just felt… bored. Bored of this tea. Bored of this chair. Bored of the sound of nothing. I was bored of just sitting in my chair, kicking my heels and drinking tea. They never tell you that the sound of silence can drive a person mad, with nothing but the sound of your own heart beat to keep you company. I tried screaming at some point, but all that my efforts delivered was the sound of more silence and a breathy exhale.

I want a refund.

This afterlife was brought to me with the cost of my life. It sucked. So I want a refund.

I don't know how long I sat in the darkness. Two cups of tea became six cups, which rapidly became a pot of tea. That pot became twelve, then thirty. The silver pot never emptied, my tea always came out exactly as I liked it mixed. I drank an ocean and then some, sitting in my chair at my table and kicking my feet. There wasn't really anything else to do here but sit, wait, and drink tea. I tried humming for awhile, but that only made me realize that I had been here an insanely long time. Sure, I could have gotten out of the chair, climbed on the table and screamed at the ever present darkness. But in all honesty… I couldn't get out of the chair. A fully grown adult couldn't get out of a chair. It was like I had turned to molasses every time I even remotely thought about standing on the table. My throat closed up and tasted like cotton balls if I thought about disturbing the peace and tranquility of this place. Yes, I wanted a refund. I didn't die to spend eternity drinking the perfect cup of tea. Wasn't there someone I could haunt or something I could do? This was hell, no ifs ands or buts about it. My own personal hell created from my own desires and failures.

A lifetime of going with the flow, of never questioning, of never getting truly attached, that was what I had to look forward to. Apparently that had earned me a cup of never-ending tea at a tea party for one. No scones or cakes, nothing to eat. On the upside, I was pretty sure I had been here longer than a day but less than forever and still hadn't needed to utilize the ladies' room. That in itself was pretty impressive.

Then again, dead people don't need to worry about biological functions. They're dead. It was a pretty sweet deal actually.

Especially when I figured out that I could actually kick the table and not hit those magical restrictions. That was awesome. There was a point where I actually stopped drinking tea long enough to figure out how to tap out really interesting things. I made up entire messages in Morse code, mostly questioning the sanity of the camel hump rider that had put me somewhere this unappealing. People probably had more fun at my funeral than I had. There were most certainly people who were enjoying my untimely demise infinitely more than I was. Screw this. Screw them. Screw every witch and stitch in this horrible place. I put the cup and saucer down on the table. I was done drinking tea. Done with being this bored, fed up with an unending supply of what had been my favorite beverage. I'd stab someone in the eye with a cigarette if I could get a cup of coffee. Horrible instant coffee would even be preferred at this particular moment. Anything but another cup of red tea. Green tea. Black tea. Plain water from a filthy tap. _Anything but endless red tea._ Just to prove a point to myself I grabbed the teapot with both hands, ripped off the lid and began pouring it on the floor. I was done with this tea. Once I had gotten into arguments about whether or not I should be allowed to buy expensive red tea when I was the only one who could pronounce its proper name. Now? Now I just wanted to burn every red tea bush to the ground and then some. I wanted to dance in the ashes of the tea fields, roll around in it and laugh like a woman gone mad.

You know that trick they do in movies where they throw something down a hole and wait for a sound so they can tell how deep the hole is? The tea never made a splashing sound on the floor. Not even that squishy sort of sound you get after adding more liquid than absolutely necessary to carpet or towels. Nothing. What I got instead was pure nightmare fuel. I could feel a distant pulse in the background, and the armchair I thought of as mine began to tilt forward. Frantically I gripped at the back, wrapping my arms around the soft suede until I could scramble about the two pieces of furniture like a deranged monkey given Red Bull and candy. I may be dead, but I had no inclinations whatsoever of finding out exactly what was under proverbial curtain number two.

I didn't exactly have a choice in the matter, not when the chair I clung to and the table I had relied on to give me something to look at simply phased out of reality. My arms passed through them as I panicked, too terrified to scream, and my fingers brushed the teacup as I fell through the warm darkness.

* * *

Sophia and Alberto Marchesi were proud of their new baby girl. She had no horrible birth defects thanks to genetics; all her fingers and toes were attached and her organs exactly where they should be. Their little girl was perfect in every way that new parents could hope for, a spring baby that was at just the right size. The doctors reassured the pair that her birthmarks would fade in time and thus the café au lait markings that covered her like speckles on a robin's egg weren't a problem. She took to breast feeding like a pro and was a delightfully quiet child. There was nothing wrong with their daughter that time wouldn't fix, at least as the doctors reassured them. From the top of her fuzz covered head to the bottoms of her wrinkly little feet, their daughter was perfect in their eyes.

They named her Eufemia, the well-spoken in hopes that she would learn the power of the pen over the sword. Alberto never left his wife's side for the duration of her stay, conducting his business from her bedside and running a careful hand over his daughter's cheek as his faithful second murmurs their affairs in the quiet night.

Eufemia barely cried, which was a welcome relief to the new parents, and only when she was hungry or had messed herself. It was as if their daughter was content to merely watch the world from her hazel eyes, waving an arm or a leg at random and clinging to her mother like a leech. She never scowled or gave angry baby faces that would be deemed cute with her pudgy little cheeks. Instead she was a smiling baby who laughed and burbled more than any other sound. Eufemia hated her crib with a passion, preferring to nap on a soft blanket spread over the carpet of whatever room her mother or father occupied over an hour. Nap time was never met with a fit and she always slept peacefully at night as long as someone remembered to crack the door and keep classical music playing at a respectable volume. Sophia, for her part, was happy that her child loved her so much that she demurely told her husband's right hand man that she wouldn't need the services of a nanny for now. But, as the mother politely phrased it, "Your sister is more than welcome in my home without having to take care of our little Effie."

The youngest Marchesi was distressingly curious about the newest house guest, regarding her self-proclaimed Zia Bella with an owlish stare and grabby baby hands towards her purse. It was a bright white monstrosity of a handbag, blazoned with shining rhinestones and so ostentatious that it physically hurt people to even glance at it. But little Eufemia loved it, babbled at it incessantly and ran her tiny hands over the surface. From that moment on, it was almost like she was learning to gauge wealth by her fingertips. She rejected presents that weren't shiny, broke into screaming fits when given any kind of toy a child her age should have enjoyed. Effie only tolerated her Zia Bella and her Mama holding her for extended periods of time. She crawled around like a demon possessed, loved bath time, and babbled the most adorable baby nonsense.

Eufemia's most treasured possession was a stuffed brown dog and she refused to be parted from it for anything less than Zia Bella's brilliant white purse. For a four month old baby she was fastidiously clean and well mannered, quietly observing the world through her mix-matched eyes and absentmindedly petting her toy dog to the point where it began to lose fur in distinct patches on its head and stomach. Sometimes, if one was quiet enough and did their absolute best to blend into the childish floral print wallpaper, the little girl could be heard calling her dog a 'Ted'. Most of the adults around her tried very hard to correct her misunderstanding, assuming that she couldn't tell the difference between a teddy bear and a dog. Effie just gave those adults her sweetest baby smile and babbled at them, clutching the dog to her and patting her toy on the head.

At six months old, Eufemia said her first word: merda. Sophia went on a warpath to determine who had taught her child such an awful word. Merda was followed by affanculo and no amount of gentle correction could get the child to stop saying what would become her two favorite words. Alberto tried a bit more directly, bribing his only child with candy and gelato to at least get her to stop saying those horrible words around her mother. It worked for a time, but when the bribes stopped coming the bad words increased in frequency and variety. Effie managed simple sentences by eight months, and by the time she had her first birthday her dog had been replaced twice. Zia Bella cheerfully gave the girl her purse for the occasion. She hadn't bothered wrapping it, just plopped the bag in front of the baby and went about her business.

The first birthday party of the sole Marchesi child was more about the adults who came and the price-tags of the presents they brought. The child herself spent most of the party sleeping or staring unnervingly at the adults who brought presents that she deemed beneath her. At a year old, Eufemia Marchesi was a darling little girl who met pet names with a frown and pats on the head with a bite. She threw the worst kind of fits when the people at her party ignored her completely to compliment her parents instead.

One old man offered her his finger to shake. "Happy birthday little Eufemia, and may you have many more." Eufemia loved that man instantly, holding her hands up in the universal baby sign for 'pick me up'. She hugged him immediately after, much to the shock and awe of Sophia and Alberto, and then proceeded to show him her dog. "Is Ted." The old man shook her dog's stuffed paw with all seriousness, and it was from that moment on that he had himself a staunch stalker for his every possible visit to the Marchesi Famiglia.

Eufemia grew up in starts and stops, teething early and crying about the experience like her world was ending. Her pillow had to be replaced as she chewed it to pieces in her need for some kind of relief and the teething rings couldn't be frozen fast enough. The one and a half year old loved nothing more than to have her Zia Bella read her the fairy tale book that strange old man had brought her, and her parents despaired as she ran about the gardens like a whirlwind of scraped knees and torn dresses. Sophia loved brushing out her daughter's pale blue-green hair and French-braiding it as Eufemia kicked her feet and played with her much abused Ted. Zia Bella came less and less often as Eufemia learned more and more words and created even more sentences. At two she spoke Italian like a three year old, and when the old man came to that party she accepted his present with a wide smile and a hug around his knees.

"Thank you mister. I'll treasure it always!"

And she did treasure it, the pretty pale orange bow she tied into the end of her braid each morning all by herself before she went to pester her Mama into reading her the funny stories in the news that day. Eufemia was an odd toddler, determined to feed herself with her fork and spoon held just like the adults, and having independently decided at two and a half that she was far too old for this diaper nonsense and would someone please direct her to the bathroom. Two and a half saw the Marchesi child reading labels off jars and cans in the kitchen where the cook couldn't tell her no. She was deemed mannered enough to be allowed to sit on a stool in the middle of the kitchen where she listened to the gossip and learned new phrases like 'una fica pronta' but knew better than to repeat them to her mother. Eufemia knew she wasn't going to grow up pretty in the classical sense of the word (a horrifying thought for a toddler to have upon seeing her reflection in her bathwater), and so she decided to be pretty in a much more useful sense of the word. She watched her Mama and Zia Bella put on their makeup while she paid attention to the contents of her Mama's closet with a fanatical devotion.

By the time her third birthday party came around, her Papa's men had decided that the Marchesi heiress was far too disturbing for a child her age. It didn't help that her eyes were weird and she acted like a miniature adult, nor did it help that she would behave like an absolute hellion when her Papa tried to take her Ted away from her. Otherwise, she was an absolute saint who liked to do nothing better than read books far too advanced for her age. Granted, she had a freakish hobby of reading Machiavelli out loud to an assembled audience of dolls and stuffed animals and acting out the part of a proper prince, but for the most part she behaved.

The third time little Eufemia Marchesi met the old man was at her third party, where he waved his guards off with a smile as soon as she saw him. It was the first party her Papa was attending, probably because his right hand man had heard from his sister that dear little Effie kept getting visits from an old man. She remembered her manners enough to have him come to her, sitting daintily on a high backed chair like she was a princess in more than just her Papa's eye, but forgot them when he smiled at her. Effie hugged him about the knees, just a little higher than the last year, and proudly showed him how her Mama had found her a pretty dress to match the bow he had given her last year. "I took good care of it, just like I promised." Alberto was the one who finally introduced the two, his hand on the top of her head as he shook the old man's hand. "Eufemia, this is Signor Timoteo of Vongola. Signor Vongola, this is my daughter Eufemia. I hope she hasn't been a bother." And the old man she likened to her grandfather smiled all the kinder as she beamed up at him, kissing the back of her hand like she was a real adult.

"Well, Signorina Marchesi. It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. You haven't been a bother at all."

"Vongola? Your name means 'clam'? Does that mean seafood is cannibalism for you?"

Most adults would have been offended by such a comment, but the Ninth Vongola merely laughed and waved off the elder Marchesi's panicked apologies on behalf of his usually well-behaved child. "Well, does that make you a Marchesa because your name is Marchesi?"

The little girl frowned at him, eyes narrowing as she glared. It was a disconcerting experience, what with one eye hazel green while the right was a perfect hue of celeste blue. Heterochromia wasn't all that awful in a child, but the fact that the blue eye's pupil was warped into a diamond and her birthmarks framed that eye was awful to look at. There was nothing wrong with that eye, not as far as Eufemia or her parents could find, but Eufemia knew that glaring at people with that eye tended to unnerve them. "No. It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles."

Timoteo was much less disturbed by the intimidation tactic of a four year old and more disturbed by the fact that she could handily quote Machiavelli in an argument. But he smiled at her anyway, leaned down to whisper in her ear so her father couldn't hear. "Well, then we should be worthy of our titles. Right Marchesa of Marchesi?"

That year he gave her a new book of fairy tales, one with an embossed leather cover and heavy paper. It was an antique, pages yellowed slightly from age, and tucked inside of it was a bookmark that wished her a happy fourth birthday from Vongola Ninth. She kept the book on her bedside table and wouldn't let any one else touch it, washed her hands twice and dried them before she would deign to touch its pages. That Christmas was the first present she had sent back to the old man, a recipe book for traditional Italian seafood that she stole from the Marchesi library and glared at her Zia until she wrote the note for her: 'Buon Natale, from the Little Marchesa to the Ninth Clam.'

She started school that year, a private tutor come to make sure the Marchesi daughter was on the right track to being a proper wife for the man who would one day take control of the Marchesi Famiglia. The man lasted all of ten minutes before she used her foulest words gleaned from the kitchens and lit his briefcase on fire. It wasn't that she disliked learning, for she had begun teaching herself new and interesting things with the help of frequent letters to a certain old man and the public library. Eufemia taught herself to write, impressive scrawls of cursive that a four and three-quarters year old should not know, and spent most of her days with her nose in an impossibly thick book borrowed from that same public library. Her Papa at last had to sit down with her, sometime after the fifth attempt to get a tutor to begin teaching her how to be a wife.

"Eufemia, you cannot be my heir. And so you must start to learn before you get more bad habits."

"Papa, I'm only four. I can't get married yet."

Her fifth birthday party was much smaller than the last few, now that the Marchesi daughter had been seen by anyone who mattered and the men had grown bored of such ridiculous decadence. The old man she had come to view as her estranged grandfather could not come, but he sent one of his body guards with her present and a letter. Coyote was not nearly as interesting as Timoteo, but the dog he brought more than made up for it. It was a furry brown monster of a Newfoundland, a year old and trained to be her own guard dog. The letter informed her that she had shown an admirable level of maturity, and that the dog was hers as long as she took care of it properly. If she neglected or mistreated him, Timoteo would send Coyote to take him back. If she was good and took proper care of the dog, Timoteo would ask her father if she could come and meet Timoteo's family. But only if she was a good Marchesa, worthy of her name and those who relied upon her.

Rex was a stoic addition to the Marchesi household, and was more than capable of keeping up with a suddenly hyperactive five year old. He kept better track of the girl than even her favorite adults could, and she would sometimes bribe him with bacon to let her ride him lie a horse through the halls. Alberto told her that to be 'good' meant she had to attend all her lessons with all seriousness. No playing around or making fun of learning would be allowed; Eufemia had to treat her lessons with the respect that her tutors deserved.

Her lessons were held primarily in English, as the only tutor who could be found and hired for the girl hadn't bothered to learn Italian. No one had bothered to ask the man if he could speak Italian, and the first day he set about trying to teach the girl how to speak a whole new language.

"Oh stop. I can understand you just fine. You're basically only here to keep my father happy, as I don't really need you," she murmured in fluent if slightly accented English from behind her latest book, uncaring that she was setting herself up as a child prodigy. Reading Italian classics in the language they were originally written in was much more fun than the basic lessons in a language she really shouldn't have known. When pressed, Eufemia would stare at the poor soul and inquire as to what exactly they thought she had been learning from those library books. But her tutor didn't care so much for the how or why his student knew English; he cared mostly for how much more she was willing to learn. Mr. Casper was more than happy with the realization that his new student was a diamond in the rough, an analytical mind just waiting to be molded into glorious new academic pursuits.

The next few months were filled with Effie caring for Rex, Rex tolerating his owner's need to use him as her personal book carrier, and Mr. Casper testing her limits. He was more than amazed that the girl understood tactics and strategy but still played an almost rubbish game of chess, had an eye for color and could reliably tell the age of a painting from its subject matter and angle alone. It was like he was dealing with a girl just blossoming into her potential as a genius, her child brain accepting new concepts and adapting them at a frightening pace. But then October came around, and Vongola had sent Coyote to come get the little girl and her dog. Rex loved the car ride more than Eufemia, sticking his head out the window to enjoy the breeze even as his human hunkered down in her seat out of sight of the window. She had never left her home before, and frankly she was terrified of the potential violence.

Timoteo greeted her with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, introducing her to his sons as his Little Marchesa from Turin. She didn't care so much about the eldest three as much as she did the youngest, holding onto Rex's leash with a death grip. Well, wasn't that just ironic. "You have feathers in your hair. Cool."

Xanxus was unimpressed by his new little stalker, but he couldn't just light her on fire and shove her down the trash chute. She was his father's guest, even if he had no idea what her name actually was, and that meant he had to play nice. As long as he wasn't too nice to the brat and the old man got it into his head that he needed to arrange a marriage. What was she, ten? The 'Little Marchesa' had been pen pals with his father for years, and her penmanship was too good to be any younger than that. But she was tiny and looked like a freak. Not exactly what he wanted to marry for the good of Vongola.

"Hey. HEY. ASSHOLE. You're on frikkin fire!" She was beginning to grate on his nerves. "No seriously, asshole. How do you not feel that? Your. Hand. Is. On. FIRE." And then she dumped a vase on his hand, thoughtfully taking the poor flowers out first. "HOLY SHIT IT'S STILL ON FIRE!"

Glaring at her and showing her his Dying Will Flame made her dump water on him. It was like she was completely unimpressed by his status and power and more impressed by how he was badass enough to walk around with feathers in his hair and no one said anything about it. There was something horribly wrong with this girl. "Bitch, were you dropped on the head as an infant?"

"Uh... pretty sure I wasn't. How are you not dead yet asshole?"

"Don't you have someone else to annoy?"

She shrugged, one hand still wrapped around the dog's leash as said dog gave him a death glare. "... Nope. Clam said I can just feel free to wander. Your brothers are dips by the way. Want I should make them suffer for you?"

"Brat, go bother someone else." Really, what were the odds of finding a house guest who had no idea of the prestige of his position as the head of Varia and that he couldn't kill without ruining his birthday party.

"Not until you make everyone here your friend by singing. So, hey. The fire thing. Is that a Vongola thing or can other people do it too?"

He gave up. "The Flame of Wrath is a Vongola thing. It marks the true descendants." Maybe if he went back to the Varia he could avoid all this.

"Oh. So it's a special boy thing. Ew. Wanna be friends anyway? I could be handy when I grow up."

No luck, she just followed him with that pony sized dog of hers. "I don't want anything to do with trash."

"I'm not trash. I'm a Marchesa. It means I'm royalty. You can't treat a blue blood like a commoner. You should be flattered I'm even talking to you."

Oh God and Saints, another noble with _problems_. At least this one let you see their eyes, not that it made the experience any better. "Not interested."

"But Xan-Xan, we could be so good together. Metaphorically, euphemistically, and realistically." She grinned evilly at his quick glance. "I'm only five, but I think I could be a good wife."

Five. His father's pet project was _five years old_ and wanted to _marry him_. He stopped in the middle of trying to run away. "What."

The little nutjob laughed in his face and patted the arm he hadn't lit on fire earlier. She curtsied, gathering her cute little dress while her dog bowed on his paws. "Happy Birthday Xan-Xan. May your enemies suffer and die horribly in the name of whatever you hold most sacred. May you live in interesting times, and always remember that never was anything great achieved without danger." And then she was gone, off to pester his father and older brothers while pretending to be an adorable little girl. But he knew better: the Little Marchesa was _Satan_.


End file.
